


Unsaid Emily

by Royalsciencenerd



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV), Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, I was super depressed when I wrote this, Not Beta Read, Songfic, You don't need to have seen Julie and the Phantoms to read, and therefore Varian is super depressed, but the song is kinda a spoiler so if you plan on watching then wait, my bad...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29109795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Royalsciencenerd/pseuds/Royalsciencenerd
Summary: While in prison, Varian thinks on his dad and what he wishes he could change.
Relationships: Quirin & Varian (Disney)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 15





	Unsaid Emily

**Author's Note:**

> Idk if this counts as a trigger warning, but I was super depressed when I wrote this, and I feel like that comes across in the fic, so just be aware of that. Like this fic is the personification of the "do you think a depressed person could make this?" meme, with me holding this fic up. 
> 
> You don't need to have watched "Julie and The Phantoms" to read this fic, but if you plan on watching it in the future, just know that this song and the identity of Emily is a big spoiler for the show. Hence why this one is not beta read, because my beta still hasn't seen it, but I'm going to keep bugging her about it until she does. 
> 
> Anyways, getting into spoilers for the song, if you haven't seen the show and you don't plan on watching, first of all know that you are missing out big time. It's fantastic! :) Secondly, know that Emily is the mother of one of the ghosts in the show, and this song is about how much he regrets not being able to go back and change how he left things (he ran away after she didn't support her teenage son being a rock star and then died). Every time I hear this song, I sob, and it's been kind of on my mind lately since it fits Varian and Quirin so well.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy the fic! :)

**_First things first_ **

**_We start the scene in reverse_ **

Varian rolled over in his bunk, curling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. Prison was as dull as he’d imagined it to be – nothing to stimulate his mind. Just sitting and thinking. Perhaps that was the point.

He’d been thinking a lot recently, especially about that day. About it all really – what he could have done differently. How things might have changed if he had. His thoughts always seemed to start at the end though, and slowly work their way back to the beginning, as if he could find and isolate his one mistake at the end of his plans. But if he was honest with himself, he knew the truth. Things had all gone wrong from the beginning.

He has no idea how long he’s been down here. He tried to keep track at first, but his overwhelming thoughts have long since set him adrift in the nothingness of time down here. His new cellmate tries to engage in conversation every so often, but he ignores him. There’s no point. He’s not here to make friends; he’s here to be punished. And he’ll never forget what happened the last time he made friends.

His thoughts drift back to the end, once again slowly working their way back to the beginning. If being left to his thoughts has done anything, it’s at least given him some perspective. He watches from outside his body as the princess uses the black rocks to defeat him, the scene slowly rewinding as he watches him attack her, try to kill Cassandra and the queen.

He pauses for a moment as he drifts back to the happy family. Watches in envy as the king and queen hug the princess, their precious daughter. Before he can linger too long, he’d drifting once again, watching the king and princess become trapped during their rescue mission, watching himself kidnap the queen, Ruddiger’s rampage induced by his own formula, the weeks of preparation beforehand, before time seems to speed up, jerking to a halt on that day. That fateful day….

Unfortunately, time stands still only for a moment. A moment is all it takes – he feels like he’s once again drowning in pain and regret. He has only seconds to register the looming crystal before him, his father trapped inside, before time is once again moving, pulling him back.

He watches as he runs home from the castle, yelling for help as the princess had refused him any. He watches as he’s thrown from the palace into the snow, watches as Rapunzel breaks her promise, watches as he races through the palace hoping she’ll help. How naïve he’d been – how foolish. He’d never been great at making friends. He’d only realized just how bad he was at it now.

And then he’s watching as his younger naïve self is racing through the snow, desperate to reach Rapunzel, desperate to reach “help.” He braces himself for the moment the younger, less damaged version of him bursts through the doors of the house, tensing as he’s moving backwards towards his lab, and then he’s there, freezing in horror as time once again slows.

He watches as the amber slowly encasing his father gradually retreats. He watches as his father shoves him out of the way, even though his present mind is screaming at him not to. And then his father walks backwards out the door through which he came, and Varian turns to find the amber gone, and his lab quiet. Taking a shuttering breath, he opens his eyes to stare at the dark stone in front of him. It was just a memory. But it was only the beginning….

**_All of the lines rehearsed_ **

**_Disappeared from my mind_ **

The next time Varian closes his eyes to try to get some rest, he’s not surprised to find the nightmare picks back up where he left off. He wonders if he can even call it that – a nightmare – seeing as it really happened. It’s not some horrible dream, a trick played on him by his mind; it’s a terrible reality.

Time moves forward this time, and Varian braces for what’s to come. His dad enters the lab and he flinches. He’s replayed this moment over a million times in his head. There’s so much he wishes he could have said, that he would have said had he been given the chance.

His dad strides forward, yelling at him for messing with the black rocks, and every word, every sentence of the speech Varian’s planned out meticulously in his mind, disappears. Every thought he needs to say, every feeling he needs to vocalize vanishes in an instant. The scene plays out as it did before, Varian helpless to stop it.

**_When things got loud_ **

**_One of us running out_ **

The amber is encasing his father. He knew this would happen, and yet he was helpless to stop it. He froze. He didn’t even try. And now he’s missed his chance. His legs start moving of their own accord, and he screams within his mind.

“I’m gonna go get help!” his body screams. “Stop! She won’t help you!” his mind screams back. His body moves forward anyways, racing out the door to the lab.

“No, son. Don’t!” he hears his dad call, and he tries, really tries, to force himself to turn back, but his body won’t respond. It keeps running, towards the palace, towards the person who he thinks will help, who he thinks cares about him, leaving the one person who actually does behind.

Varian rebels against his own body, fighting, trying to force himself to turn back, but it’s no use. This is all just a memory.

**_I should have turned around_ **

**_But I had too much pride_ **

****

Varian screams within his own mind. “Turn back! You have to go back!”

“We have to go for help! We have to save him! It’s the only way to make him proud!” his mind screams back.

Make him proud?!? Varian inwardly groans. How naïve he’d been to think he could have ever made his father proud. His determination to be the one to save his father, his ironclad will to let nothing stand in his way, was once again leading him down this path to destruction.

If he had just turned around, if he had just stayed with his father, he might have at least gotten to say goodbye. Instead, he went on a fool’s errand, one that changed nothing. This was always destined to be a disaster; his pride in his alchemy abilities changed nothing. He was doomed from the start. He never should have gone for help. He never should have left his father to die alone.

**_No time for goodbyes_ **

**_Didn't get to apologize_ **

**_Pieces of a clock that lies broken_ **

Deep down Varian still has hope his father is alive, just catatonic within the amber, but at the same time he wonders about the worst. Time moves forward in the memory, racing like a rushing river to the moment where he’d found his father encased in his amber tomb. Then time stops, freezing like the blood in Varian’s veins.

Prison has given him a lot of time to think, especially about what he could and should have said and done. He never should have left his father’s side. He should have listened to him and stayed. His father never would have abandoned him; so why did he abandon his father?

NO! That wasn’t a fair assessment of the situation, Varian growled. He hadn’t abandoned him – he’d gone for help. But what difference did that make? Help had never come, and he’d lost the chance to say the things that had needed to be said, perhaps for forever.

He never got to say goodbye. He never got to hug his dad one last time and tell him he’s sorry, and that he loves him, and that he never meant for things to turn out like this. In fact, the last thing he did was yell at his father – something Varian will regret forever. He used to pride himself on his ability to fix things – between his alchemy and his engineering skills there was always a way. But now he finds he has no idea how to fix any of this.

**_If I could take us back_ **

**_If I could just do that_ **

It would be very helpful if life had a reverse button, Varian thinks. If he could just press it, and time would rewind, and he could change all that needed to be undone. If he could just go back to that one moment; he could fix everything.

That’s all he was asking for, was one moment to do over; one moment to change everything. If only he had the ability to do it all over again, maybe he could have made sure things didn’t end so horribly. Maybe he could have at least told his dad he loved him. Maybe he wouldn’t be so alone now. Maybe, somehow, he could have made sure everything turned out alright.

**_And write in every empty space_ **

**_The words I love you in replace_ **

**_Then maybe time would not erase me_ **

There were many different variations of the speech Varian had meticulously planned out in his mind of things he should have said. Some of them focus on convincing his dad they need help because of the black rocks’ destruction, some of them extend to him questioning more about his father’s own past and why his father is so afraid to let him in, but all of them carry one central theme.

Regardless of what he tells his dad about the black rocks, regardless of whether or not he pries about his past, there is one aspect of the conversation Varian knows he would say, regardless of how the rest of the conversation went. He’s thought a lot about potential ways the conversation could have gone down, but there is always one constant: he would have told his dad he loves him.

Even with all his flaws, even with all his secrets, and his running and hiding from their problems, Varian stills loves his father. It pains him more than all of the other suffering he’s been through recently that he can’t even remember the last time he said that aloud.

If he could go back in time, and choose one wrong to right, it would be to say that aloud. To tell his dad that he loves him. Instead of arguing and pushing for answers, he’d just flat out say it. Then maybe what followed afterwards wouldn’t leave him feeling so empty. Maybe if he’d just told him, he wouldn’t regret as much. Maybe, if his father knew he loved him, he wouldn’t feel as alone and forgotten as he does now.

**_If you could only know_ **

**_I never let you go_ **

Another thing Varian has wondered about while in prison, is how much his father is aware of the outside world, (assuming he’s even alive, of course). Does he know about his son’s descent into villainy? Was he listening when Varian struggled and raged against the unfairness of it all? Does he understand why his son did what he did? Or is he just disappointed in what his son has become?

Varian is torn between wanting his father to know and not know. On the one hand, he’s done horrible things, and dad would be so disappointed. But on the other, he did it all to save him. He never gave up on his dad, even when everyone else gave up on him.

There may be days when Varian wonders if his father is even still alive, but he’ll never give up on freeing him. Even if it’s just to be able to give him a proper funeral instead of having his greatest failure being immortalized forever in the amber’s solid gold.

Regardless of what happens in the future, regardless of being alone right now, Varian will always hold tight to the memory of his father. They can take everything else away from him – his alchemy, their fake friendship, his freedom, but they’ll never be able to pry his love for his father from him, and the memories that come with it. Even though he can’t hold onto anything else, Varian takes comfort in the fact that he can at least hold onto that.

**_And the words I most regret_ **

**_Are the ones I never meant to leave_ **

**_Unsaid [Quirin]_ **

What was Varian’s biggest regret? If you’d asked him that months ago, when he attacked the princess, or months before that when he was thrown out into the storm, he might have answered trusting the princess. Ever believing he could trust her. But that’s not true – at least, not anymore.

Prison has given Varian clarity in regards to his biggest regret. It’s not trusting the princess (although that is a big one). It’s not attacking the kingdom like the conclusion the guards and the king probably wish he would come to. No, it’s none of that.

Prison is about reform, about thinking about what you did wrong, and how you could possibly fix it. It’s about paying penance for your actions, about thinking on those you’ve hurt by them. The whole reason he’s down here is as punishment for what he did to the kingdom – he’s sure their goal is for him to see his actions as a mistake, and to regret them. But his biggest regret is how he left his father.

He shouldn’t have yelled that fateful day. He was just so frustrated, and it felt like no one was doing anything. No one was even trying, except him. The king was covering it up, the princess was too busy, and his father was lying – that left only him to solve the problem of the black rocks, because someone needed to. And if no one else would, then the responsibility fell to him.

Varian never asked for that responsibility. But a combination of wanting to make his father proud, wanting to help his friend Rapunzel, and wanting to be the hero who saved his village, pushed him to be foolish enough to accept it. He should have listened to his father when he had the chance. He never should have tried to play hero. Look where that got him after all. When playing hero hadn’t worked, he’d tried to play the villain – turns out he wasn’t very good at either role. Which is why both got recast, and he was tossed aside - forgotten.

He should have just listened. His father was only trying to protect him, and even if he didn’t fully understand how at the time, he should have trusted him. He’d screamed at his father. He’d screamed at his dad, and then he’d gotten trapped, and Varian had left, and he never got to say goodbye.

“I deserve to know.” He didn’t mean for those to be his last words to his father. He hadn’t meant to shove him. He regretted so many things about that day, it was hard to focus on just one. But his biggest regret was his last conversation with his father before the amber encased him. He never meant to leave things like that with his father, never meant for the last words his father heard from him before the amber grabbed him to be said out of anger and frustration.

Those words were his biggest regret – one he might never get to fix. If he’d known what was about to happen, he never would have said them. But he did, and those words are his biggest regret.

**_Silent days_ **

**_Mysteries and mistakes_ **

When the black rocks had first appeared, Varian had said nothing to his father about them. He’d thought they were cool – totally unbreakable, unlike any compound he’d ever seen, perhaps a new element he could add to the periodic table after discovering it. How naïve he’d been.

And then, after the science expo, after he’d lost, he’d taken the princess and Cassandra to see the black rocks that had inspired his invention. They’d asked him not to tell, and he’d trusted them. He wanted to be trustworthy too, so he’d agreed. He’d been a fool.

In the weeks that followed, he’d secretly worked on trying to discover a way to destroy the black rocks. His father had been busy with work in the fields, trying to salvage what they could every time a new cluster of the rocks appeared, which had been happening more and more often. Between Varian’s secret experimentation, and his father’s attempts to hide his secret past, they hadn’t spoken much. Varian regrets that as well.

He’d been so caught up in the mystery of the black rocks, of trying to fix the problem, he made the mistake of shutting his father out. They’d never been the most open and honest with each other, but those weeks were some of the quietest in their house.

The only time their house had been quieter was the hours between their return from the palace and his father’s discovery of his experimentation on the black rocks. The house had been silent in those hours, the only noise being the bubbling of Varian’s reagents he was creating to use on the rocks.

They’d both made mistakes; Varian knew this. But he was the only one of them who currently had the ability to fix his. He was going to make this right. He had to – otherwise he would have to live with this regret for forever.

**_Who'd be the first to break?_ **

**_Guess we're alike that way_ **

Stubbornness was a family trait. Varian might not have inherited his dad’s strength or size, but if one was trying to determine they were related, one would have to look no further than their stubborn nature.

The walk back from the palace after seeing the king was one of the tensest interactions Varian’s ever experienced with his father. He’d been so angry at his father for lying, and his father had been so frustrated with him not understanding – needless to say it had been a long trip home.

The entire time, Varian kept glancing over at his dad, wondering how he could possibly justify his actions. How could his own father lie to the king? He’d kept thinking that maybe his father would change his mind, that they would turn around and go tell the king the truth, but then they had reached the village and his father was continuing his lying, this time to the villagers – to their people, and Varian had felt in the moment that his dad was no better than the king.

Varian had held his ground, believing his father would cave before him, give in and tell the truth, but it turns out they were both too stubborn for their own good. Varian had been too stubborn with finding out the truth, and his father had been too stubborn in maintaining his lie, and it had cost them both everything.

Both of them had been so determined not to be the one to break, that their stubbornness had shattered both their worlds. Like father, like son. Although after everything that had happened, Varian wondered if he was still anything like his father.

**_He said, [he] said_ **

**_Conversations in my head_ **

**_And that's just where they're gonna stay forever_ **

At the risk of sounding cliché, Varian would argue that nights in prison were the hardest. During the day, there were two meals, and Andrew’s constant ranting to distract him. While Varian never listened particularly closely, the background noise as Andrew droned on and on was a welcome distraction.

Nights were a different story. The only sounds were the occasional footsteps of the guards making their rounds and the distant soft snores of other prisoners. The silence left Varian feeling even more alone, and he found himself drifting back to that day once again.

Before his world had fallen apart, he’d yelled at his father, and his father had yelled right back, and he regretted that that was the way they left things. He replayed the conversation again and again, analyzing every detail of it, as if he could fix it just by replaying it in his mind.

There were so many things he said, when he should have said others. He wondered if his dad felt the same regrets. It didn’t really matter though, did it? Replaying the conversation over and over, and thinking about how it could have gone differently was a moot point – he would never get the chance to fix this. This exercise in attempting to change the conversation was pointless – it was all in his head, where it would likely stay for forever.

**_If I could take us back_ **

**_If I could just do that_ **

Maybe there was a way to go back. Maybe he could use his alchemy to find a way, or maybe there was some magic he could use to go back – even for a moment. He doesn’t work with magic, but these were desperate times – he would take what he can get.

A moment is all he needs. He might not be able to fix everything in that moment, but he could at least tell his father he’s sorry and that he loves him. He could do that in a moment. A moment is all he’s asking for.

What was the point of being one of the brightest minds in Corona (a misunderstood genius, if you will), if he couldn’t help the people (person) he cared about? All the brains in the world, all the inventions, the machines, the alchemy, couldn’t help him now. Perhaps it never did. The only way to know for sure would be to go back and change things to make the outcome better. Unfortunately, that was the one thing Varian could not do.

**_And write in every empty space_ **

**_The words I love you in replace_ **

**_Then maybe time would not erase me_ **

Why hadn’t he paused when his dad had screamed for him? Why hadn’t he at least taken the time to stop and have one final conversation with him? He could have still gone to get the princess afterwards. She would have still been there, waiting to refuse him help, regardless of if he had stayed with his dad for an extra few minutes.

The answer was simple – he hadn’t thought that would be their final conversation. If he had, he would have said everything he had meant to say, but had been so blinded by frustration and fear that he hadn’t.

He would have explained to his dad why he felt the need to help, why he felt he had to prove his worth to him as his son. He would have told his father that he doesn’t understand why he felt the need to lie, that they could have worked together to fix the problem if he had just let him in. But most importantly, Varian would have told him that he would never stop trying to save him, because his dad had always been there to save his son when he needed him, and that despite their recent disagreements, Varian still loved him.

Time was a cruel master. It moves forward even when you feel like you can’t, pushing you along with it. You can either get up and keeping moving forward, or let it crash over you, rolling the empty shell of whatever person you were along with it.

But time is cruel in more ways than one. Time is what makes people forget. People, places, things they once held dear, no longer have any meaning. The only way to combat this that Varian knows of is through love – a love that clings tight to those important to it, never letting them go. It’s love that causes people to remember you. And now the one person who loved him, the one person who cared enough to remember him (the real him, not the villain he became out of grief), was gone. And so, he is forgotten.

**_If you could only know_ **

**_I never let you go_ **

Varian wonders if people will remember his father. Quirin, the leader of Old Corona, the king’s humble servant, the father of some crazy kid who no one remembers their name, only the destruction they left in their wake. His father has always had more pull with the general public. People respected him, and looked to him for guidance. Varian wonders if they’ll look back and think on him, long after they’ve forgotten his son, only remembering the villain that tried to destroy them.

Varian’s the only one who he knows for sure will hold onto his father’s memory – no matter what. Perhaps someone else from his father’s mysterious past might remember him too, but Varian isn’t willing to take that risk. He will keep his father’s memory alive the best he can, hoping that one day his father will return to re-establish the memory himself.

But for now, Varian holds tight to his memories of his father, as he worries they might be all he has left of him.

**_And the words I most regret_ **

**_Are the ones I never meant to leave_ **

**_Unsaid [Quirin]_ **

Varian stares up at the ceiling of his cell, pondering what happens next. If the king has his way, he stays down here forever – him and his father a forgotten memory. A tragic story, a failure one wishes to forget. Figures that everyone else gets to move on, while he’s trapped down here, stuck thinking about the past. Time was a cruel master, indeed.

Time gives clarity, but time also makes you forget. Varian finds he doesn’t want to forget – at least not yet. He holds onto the pain because it fuels him, drives him forward. He fears if he doesn’t keep moving forward, he’ll be swallowed by the nothingness of time. It might be a losing battle, but it’s one he’s willing to fight anyways.

The last words he’d said before being carted away from his home, from his father, were, “I will make you proud of me, dad. If it’s the last thing I ever do.” It wasn’t so much a promise, but a statement filled with conviction. If Varian had learned anything, it was that promises can be broken – his convictions can’t.

Varian has many regrets about the things he’s said and done, but that one is not one of them. There are certain things he regrets saying, words he didn’t mean to leave behind, but that one statement rings true. He meant it when he said it. He meant to leave that statement behind, even if there’s no way his father possibly heard it.

Some words are just meant for yourself. These were some of them. Varian had lost so much by leaving necessary words unsaid. He wasn’t about to not say more.

Perhaps there was no way to go back, no way to fix things moving forward, but that didn’t mean Varian would stop trying. He would always keep trying to make his father proud. He meant what he said – he would do it, if it was the last thing he ever does.

No! Varian thinks. Yes, he wants to make his father proud, and he WILL succeed, but it won’t be the last thing he ever does. The last thing he ever does will be to make sure his father knows how much he loves him.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, there will be a chapter 2. No, I'm not telling y'all what it is, but hopefully it'll be less depressing than this chapter (although knowing me I doubt it).
> 
> Just for the record, I am doing better - this week was just really awful. But the week's over so that's good! :)
> 
> As always, feel free to let me know what you thought! :D


End file.
